PEA to Hear “Voices from Gaza”
In an effort to present the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a more humane perspective, seniors Zoha Qamar and Saisha Talwar will host Voices from Gaza, a conversation about the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The discussion will take place in the Forum tomorrow from 6:00 to 7:30 pm, featuring a speech from Salma Shawa, a current high school student from Texas who lived in Gaza until this year, talks from history instructors Michael Golay and Andrew Hertig and excerpts of letters from Israeli and Palestinian teenagers.
Qamar and Talwar said that students’ continuous discussions on social media surrounding the violence that broke out this summer between Palestinian and Israeli forces inspired them to organize the event. Both noted that most students, if not all, seemed to focus on the political aspects of the conflict rather than the personal, human realities of it.
"Over the summer on Facebook, we both saw a lot of threads of Exonians talking about the conflicts in the Middle East, and we thought everybody had a very politicized view, which is fine, because it is obviously a political issue, but we wanted to ground everyone’s perspective on a more humanitarian light," Qamar said.
At the start of this school year, Qamar and Talwar approached Golay, the teacher for their Contemporary Middle East class, in order to plan the event with faculty guidance. Along with Golay, the two seniors contacted Elizabeth Reyes, ESSO coordinator, and asked if they could host a forum to shed more light on the conflict.
Reyes said Qamar and Talwar were very excited to share how the Palestinian conflict was affecting their friends and family. These are "the people that they love, since both of them have worked with different people and visited the areas," Reyes said.
After filling out an application, the Student Funding Committee accepted the duo’s proposal, and they began to plan the event at once. Initially, Qamar and Talwar planned on inviting a speaker from the New England region, or an individual in academia who is extensively knowledgeable in the topic. However, as they continued brainstorming, they concluded that Shawa would be the most fitting and effective speaker for Exonians.
Talwar said that she first met Shawa in Seeds of Peace, a camp that brings youth together from conflict regions like Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to have open dialogues similar to Harkness.
"[She] lived in Gaza her whole life, but then moved to Texas after this summer’s events, because it was getting to unsafe and she wanted to go to an American school," Talwar said.
Aware of Shawa’s background and her experiences in Palestine, Qamar and Talwar used their funding to fly Shawa from her new home in Texas to Exeter to present a talk to the Academy community.
Shawa said that attending Seeds of Peace was a transformative experience, for it allowed her to realize the realities of the conflict, and the commonalities the people of the opposing sides of the conflict shared.
"It changed me a lot," Shawa said. "I’ve never met the other side, Israel; I’ve never known them. The only contact I had ever had with them was as soldiers or as the people who bombed me, but when I went to camp, I started realizing they are humans, and we share a lot of things other than the conflict and the bad things that happen," she said.
Shawa said that Seeds of Peace broadened her perspective and served her as an eye-opener. She emphasized that during her talk, she will focus plainly on her life and experiences in Gaza living amidst the tension, as well as the sufferings and the human aspects of the conflicts.
"I’m going to talk about my life in Gaza, and how the siege affected me as a person," Shawa said.
This humanitarian view of the conflict that Shawa plans on providing to the Academy community is exactly what Qamar and Talwar hope students and faculty will take away from the event.
Qamar characterized the program as an opportunity for Exonians to be global without having to go off-campus. She said that by just dedicating an hour and a half, students would be able to learn not only about an individual’s life, but also the harsh realities of the situation in regions like Gaza.
"It’s not something we get the chance to do a lot. I think we politicize so many issues on campus; we talk so much about these abstract, lofty issues, and by doing so we think we’re being global," Qamar said. "This event, however, is a great and rare opportunity for us to actually become aware of an ongoing global conflict by focusing on the humanitarian aspect of it, and I think everybody should take advantage of it."
Golay expressed his hopes on what this forum will do for Exeter and how it will help broaden students’ viewpoints. He explained that the students in attendance will encounter the genuine experience of someone their age who has undergone what "we see on the news but do not think much about."
"I think it has been a pretty horrific experience for her, and we are going to hear her story unmediated," Golay said. "I hope she will be candid and tell us what she went through and how she experienced. I think this will be extremely illuminating."
Reyes echoed Golay’s sentiments and voiced enthusiasm for the event’s possible effects on campus.
"I hope this seminar opens up people’s minds and ideas, and reveals that there are two sides to every story," she said. "Hopefully after this talk people will pay more attention to the news and what is going on outside of our little world. The more we know, the better decisions we can make in our everyday life."